Chapter 30 - One Day Without Trash Talk Makes Me Uncomfortable (1/2)

The two authors were respectively named ‘Anxiously’ and ‘KeyboardsMakeMeSleepy’. Both were prodigy level novel writers. ‘KeyboardsMakeMeSleepy’ didn’t need an introduction—who would have that kind of name if they didn’t live up to it. Meng Fan was still painstakingly following his ‘There’s a Spirit Underground’ series. As for “Anxiously”, Meng Fan had previously heard of him. He even read one of his books, although he never finished it.

Meng Fan loyally followed “There’s a Spirit Underground”. He even read the beginning twice, so there was no need to read the book when he did the illustrations. At most, he would need to flip to some important chapters for details.

This was a horror novel about spiritual creatures. From a certain point of view, it fell in Meng Fan’s lap, as it would have been an easy task for someone who could draw most of the characters in the ‘Hyakkiyakou’ straight from his mind.

Anxious’s novel was a fantasy story titled ‘The Supreme Sword’. Based on the name alone, one could deduce this was a story about sword fighting. If he could bring ancient swordsman Li Chun Gang to life through his drawings, Meng Fan was confident in his ability to illustrate the flying sword.

As for the style of flying daggers, aside from its shape, the other details could be gathered from his knowledge of historical costumes, and small motifs like cloud prints, thunder prints, dragon prints, phoenix prints, etc could be slapped on. Add some more ancient creatures, and Meng Fan could draw for three days and three nights without repetition.

Besides, if it was related to swordplay, the clothing and design must lean towards historical style, which was also in Meng Fan’s field of expertise.

Buzz Buzz.

After the authors sent their book titles and social media handles, they also attached a money transfer of 1500 HXB each.

Meng Fan collected the money and followed their accounts. He browsed through their recent activity and easily found some earlier versions of book illustrations. But more than half of them were irrelevant to the context, and the ones that were, to be honest, were not very good.

It was just as Bee said, authors these days became more and more aware of their social media presence, or else they wouldn’t be bothered to look for a professional illustrator.

Fifteen hundred dollars a week was a considerable expense for most internet authors, but to these legendary tier writers, it was nothing. They probably made more from the sheer advertising fees their accounts received each week.

Meng Fan flipped through ‘The History of Ancient Chinese Weapons’ again to find the sword article. He then proceeded to download ‘The Supreme Sword’ and began reading.

That book was very exciting, and the rhythm was good as well. However, since Meng Fan’s interests didn’t fall in its category, his overall reading experience hadn’t been that good. By chapter thirty, he was struggling to continue.

But this was part of the job.

“Chubs, you’ve changed.”

The bell had just sounded, signaling the end of class. Zhang Zhou Wei slinked over to Meng Fan from where he had just been clinging to Wang Ya Nan. He was serious and asked Meng Fan. “You stopped Leaguing, PubGing, even Overwatch! You even left out a bottle of icy cola, and you run every morning. You look skinnier, even more handsome, but most importantly, you’ve become so hardworking and outstanding! You’re making us pale in comparison!”

Meng Fan packed up his untouched textbooks and notebooks and squinted at Zhang Zhou Wei. “Speak, how much do you need?”

“My parents birthed me, but only Meng boss truly knows me!”

Zhang Zhou Wei smirked and embarrassingly popped up two fingers. He then slowly responded, “Two thousand. I’m about to go shopping with Ya Nan at the luxury store.”

Meng Fan transferred 2000 HXB to Zhang Zhou Wei on WeChat, then remembered something. “Oh yeah, by the way, can you bring me back a phone stand? The kind that’s suitable for streaming. Doesn’t your girlfriend also stream art, maybe she can pick out a good one for me?”

“Got it.”

Zhang Zhou Wei turned around and pranced away.

“No wonder my mom asked me about my financial situation when she was interrogating me for a girlfriend.” Meng Fan muttered to himself. He packed up and headed back to the dormitory, but he didn’t continue reading the novels. Instead, he started preparing the content for the stream that evening.

He probably won’t be able to stream his illustrations for ‘The Supreme Sword’, but ‘There’s a Spirit Underground’ was definitely doable.

“Tonight is a psychic special—I’m drawing original manuscripts for ‘There’s a Spirit Underground’.” Meng Fan logged into 8th station and revised his header. Seeing that the sun outside had been covered by clouds before it set, he gratefully threw on his sportswear and headed to the track early.

He ran 8 kilometers in 1 hour and 6 minutes, with the first 6 kilometers averaging under 8 minutes per km. The last two kilometers took a bit more effort.

“It’s still early today, let’s run some more.”

He felt an unreasonable willpower to continue and picked up his pace that had just dropped.

“Should I try the energizing chews?”

Meng Fan had been eyeing the energy chews in the equipment row on his [Travelling Deity] progress bar for a while now.

Energy Chews: Restores 20% of physical strength, relieves 50% of fatigue (Repeated use should occur a minimum of 10 minutes later, effects diminish throughout the span of one day)

The energy chews weren’t expensive and only cost 5 points in exchange for one piece. Meng Fan had 73 points, so it didn’t cost him too much to try just one. Nonetheless, he was still too stingy.